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Ah yes. It’s that time of year when people start talking about Christopher Columbus again isn’t it?Here’s the thing: when people condemn Christopher Columbus for his atrocities, they aren’t doing so on an anachronistic basis. Columbus was widely recognized as a bad dude within his own lifetime and by his own people. In fact, he was so notoriously brutal during his time as governor of Hispaniola that he was actually removed from his position by the Spanish crown.The dark side of Christopher ColumbusThe main reason why Columbus is so controversial is primarily because of his brutal and sadistic mistreatment of the native peoples of the land he explored. Many people are vaguely aware that Columbus did some bad things, but few are aware just how horrifying some of the things he did really were. We will start at the beginning, with the mildly depraved and work our way up to the downright appalling. Columbus himself describes his first experience with the native Taíno people on San Salvador in a letter written to Ferdinand and Isabella in 1493 on his way back to Spain from his first voyage:“They have no iron or steel, nor any weapons; nor are they fit thereunto; not because they be not a well-formed people and of fair stature, but that they are most wondrously timorous… such they are, incurably timid… They are artless and generous with what they have, to such a degree as noone would believe but him who had seen it. Of anything they have, if it be asked for, they never say no, but do rather invite the person to accept it, and show as much lovingness as though they would give their hearts……Their Highnesses may see that I shall give them as much gold as they may need, with very little aid which their Highnesses will give me; spices and cotton at once, as much as their Highnesses will order to be shipped, and as much as they shall order to be shipped of mastic… and aloe-wood as much as they shall order to be shipped; and slaves as many as they shall order to be shipped.”In other words, no sooner had Columbus finished praising the natives for their generosity than he was already beginning to think of ways to capture them to bring them back to Europe as slaves. In his journal, he wrote, “…the people here are simple in warlike matters… I could conquer the whole of them with fifty men and govern them as I pleased.”These tyrannical aspirations would soon be fulfilled. For the time being, however, Columbus was forced to settle for merely capturing the natives and selling them into slavery. On his first voyage, Columbus captured twenty-five Lucayo people to bring back to Europe to sell into slavery; all but seven of them died of disease on the voyage back across the Atlantic. Capturing slaves and selling them in Europe became a major objective for all of Columbus’s future voyages.To this end, Columbus and his men ultimately played a pivotal role in establishing the trans-Atlantic slave trade. American historian James W. Loewen states, “Columbus not only sent the first slaves across the Atlantic, he probably sent more slaves – about five thousand – than any other individual… other nations rushed to emulate Columbus.”ABOVE: Imaginative portrayal of the landing of Christopher Columbus on San Salvador on 12 October 1492, painted in 1847 by the American Neoclassical painter John VanderlynFor his second voyage, which set out from Cádiz, Spain on September 24, 1493, Columbus was given seventeen ships and over 12,000 men. His primary objective for this voyage was to establish permanent colonies in the New World in the name of Spain. His crew included soldiers, farmers, priests, and others from a diverse array of occupations. On November 3, Columbus and his men spotted the island of Dominica and then Marie-Galante. They journeyed north through the Lesser Antilles, the Virgin Islands, past Puerto Rico, and back to Hispaniola, which he had visited on his first voyage.Michele da Cuneo, a childhood friend of Columbus who accompanied him on his second voyage, proudly describes how Columbus gave him a native woman as a sex slave, who was at first unwilling to let him ravish her, but he tortured her until she agreed to let him do whatever he wanted to her:“While I was in the boat, I captured a very beautiful Carib woman, whom the said Lord Admiral [i.e. Columbus] gave to me. When I had taken her to my cabin she was naked—as was their custom. I was filled with a desire to take my pleasure with her and attempted to satisfy my desire. She was unwilling, and so treated me with her nails that I wished I had never begun. But—to cut a long story short—I then took a piece of rope and whipped her soundly, and she let forth such incredible screams that you would not have believed your ears. Eventually we came to such terms, I assure you, that you would have thought that she had been brought up in a school for whores.”If you think that is horrifying already, just wait; things get way, way worse. In a letter written in around 1500 to Doña Juana de la Torre, the sister of one of his leading crew members on his second voyage, Columbus himself boasts in his own words of one of the ways in which he made money on his recent third voyage, in which he had continued exploring part of the Caribbean and begun exploring the northeast coast of South America. Columbus writes, as translated by George F. Barwick:“Now that so much gold is found, a dispute arises as to which brings more profit, whether to go about robbing or to go to the mines. A hundred castenelloes are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand.”That is right. Apparently Columbus was not just a sex trafficker, but a child sex trafficker.Christopher Columbus was not only brutal in his enslavement of native peoples; he was also cruel to his own Spanish subjects. A forty-eight-page report written by Francisco de Bobadilla, Columbus’s successor as the governor of the colony of Hispaniola, contains eyewitness testimony from twenty-three of Columbus’s Spanish subjects on his behavior during his seven-year governance of the colony. The report describes in horrifying detail how he frequently employed maiming and mutilation as punishments, even for minor offenses.For example, the report states that Christopher Columbus once punished a man for stealing a piece of corn by having the man’s nose and ears sliced off and selling him into slavery. When a woman showed the audacity to insinuate that Columbus might be of lowly birth, his brother Bartolomeo had her paraded through the streets naked and then had her tongue cut out. Christopher praised Bartolomeo for “defending the family.” When the native subjects rebelled against him, Columbus brutally massacred them and had their bloody and dismembered corpses paraded through the streets to discourage future revolts.Things ultimately ended badly for Christopher Columbus and his brothers’ rule of Hispaniola. In August 1498, his subjects rebelled; they were incensed at the discovery that the New World was not overflowing with mountains of gold, as Columbus had deceitfully promised them to convince them to come with him. Meanwhile, sailors and colonists who had returned to Spain were lobbying the king and queen to have Columbus removed from power, telling them of his disgraceful mismanagement and tyranny. Columbus responded to this situation by having some of the rebel colonists hanged.Meanwhile, Columbus was beginning to attract criticism from some Catholic clergy. You see, the church in those days prohibited Christians from being taken as slaves and, if a slave converted to Christianity, he or she was required to be set free. According to some critics, Columbus wanted to capture as many slaves as possible to make as much money for himself as he could, so he was deliberately avoiding converting native peoples to Christianity so that he could sell them into slavery.In 1500, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain sent emissaries to remove Columbus from his position as governor of Hispaniola, arrest him and his brothers, and bring them back to Spain. Columbus and his brothers were thrown in prison, where they stayed for six weeks until King Ferdinand ordered them to be released. The king and queen met with the Columbus brothers shortly thereafter and agreed to fund Columbus’s fourth and final voyage, but they refused to reinstate him as governor of Hispaniola.Apart from the report from Francisco de Bobadilla, even more horrifying information about Columbus’s mistreatment of native peoples comes from the book A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, written in around 1542 by Bartolomé de las Casas (lived c. 1484 – 1566), an early colonist in the Americas whose father had been one of Columbus’s crew members on his second voyage. Las Casas was a passionate defender of the native peoples and fierce advocate for their rights and human dignity.In his book, Las Casas claims that, at one point, after Columbus’s slave workers quickly began to die at an exponential rate due to mistreatment and disease, Columbus himself issued a decree that every native over the age of thirteen was required to supply him with one hawk’s bell full of gold powder every three months. Those who brought the proper amount of gold were given copper tokens to wear around their necks. If any Spaniard caught a native without a visible copper token, he was required to chop the native’s hands off and leave him to die of blood loss.ABOVE: The Spanish colonist Bartolomé de las Casas provides us with horrifying, although possibly exaggerated, accounts of Columbus’s alleged cruelty to the native Taíno people of the Caribbean.To be clear, Bartolomé de las Casas was not an unbiased reporter, since he had a polemical agenda to portray current Spanish policies towards the natives as cruel and inhumane and thereby prove the need for drastic reform. Many historians believe that many of his accounts of the cruelty of Spanish colonists are probably somewhat exaggerated, but much of what he tells us about Columbus squares well with what we know about Columbus’s cruelty from other sources (particularly with his apparent fondness for dismembering people).Christopher Columbus’s dark legacyIf the things Columbus himself did were not horrible enough, his legacy was even worse. Bartolomé de las Casas gives extensive accounts of the brutality of the Spanish colonists in the Caribbean who followed in Columbus’s footsteps. The following passage is just a brief representative example:“They forced their way into native settlements, slaughtering everyone they found there, including small children, old men, pregnant women, and even women who had just given birth. They hacked them to pieces, slicing open their bellies with their swords as though they were so many sheep herded into a pen. They even laid wagers on whether they could manage to slice a man in two at a stroke, or cut an individual’s head from his body, or disembowel him with a single blow of their axes. They grabbed suckling infants by the feet and, ripping them from their mothers’ breasts, dashed them headlong against the rocks. Others, laughing and joking all the while, threw them over their shoulders into a river, shouting, ‘Wriggle, you little perisher.'”Las Casas filled his entire book with reports just like this one. Once again, while these lavish descriptions are probably greatly exaggerated, they do reflect the grim reality that the colonists generally had very few reservations about maiming and killing the native inhabitants of the lands they were colonizing.Meanwhile, the first European colonists in the Americas brought with them the same diseases from the Old World that had ravished the population of Europe for over the past two millennia: smallpox, typhus, measles, influenza, bubonic plague, cholera, malaria, tuberculosis, mumps, yellow fever, pertussis, and dozens of others. Most Europeans by the 1500s had evolved at least some level of protective immunity to these diseases, because everyone who was especially vulnerable to them had already been killed in massive pandemics such as the Antonine Plague (165–180 AD), the Plague of Justinian (541–542 AD), and the Black Death (1347–1351), each of which is thought to have killed roughly between 30–60% of Europe total population, as well as in smaller, local epidemics.All these diseases, however, were completely foreign to the New World and the native peoples had no immunity to any of them. As a result of all these diseases being introduced at once, the native Americans almost immediately began to drop like flies. The diseases rapidly spread across the Americas in a matter of just a few years to all parts of the continents, including ones Europeans had no idea even existed, killing millions of people as they went.The sheer levels of death and disease can hardly even be fathomed by people today. By 1600, just over a century after Columbus’s arrival, the indigenous population of the Americas had plummeted by perhaps as much as 90% in some areas, a death toll that far exceeds that of any other pandemic in all of human history. To exaggerate only a little bit, by the time the bulk of English settlers began to arrive in the future United States in the late 1600s, the Americas were like a post-apocalyptic world.ABOVE: Illustration from the Florentine Codex (compiled between 1555–1576), showing Nahua people of modern-day Mexico suffering and dying of smallpox during the era of the Spanish conquestOf course, no one could have possibly known what devastating effect that European diseases would have on the native population beforehand. Certainly neither Columbus nor anyone else had any idea what massive death and devastation that his colonies and the ones following immediately afterwards would cause. Nonetheless, in hindsight, knowing what we do now about the carnage and death left behind by the introduction of European diseases should give us serious doubts about wanting to celebrate the man who inadvertently started it all.ObjectionsI have heard a lot of objections and excuses for why, in spite of all the awful things Columbus did, it is still appropriate that we should honor him. Here is a sound debunking of a just a few:“Well, Columbus may have been a bit of a jerk, but we should still honor him for all the good he did.”First of all, “kind of a jerk” is a serious understatement when describing a man who captured and sold thousands of people into slavery and routinely had his subjects dismembered and executed in horrifying ways as punishments for relatively minor crimes. Second of all, accidentally stumbling across the Americas does not make up for the hundreds of people he sold into slavery, mutilated, and/or killed.“Well, the native Americans killed each other and engaged in behavior equally as savage as what Columbus did, so why are we blaming him?”It is true that many of the native peoples Columbus encountered were violent towards each other, but that does not in any way excuse what he did to them. Whether one person’s actions are morally justifiable is not determined in relation to other people’s actions. Furthermore, different native tribes in the Caribbean had different cultures and some were generally more peaceful than others, so we cannot generalize that they were all violent.“Columbus was a product of his times and, those days, everyone was brutally sadistic.”I agree that we should judge historical figures by the standards of their own times rather than anachronistically imposing modern conventions on them, but, in this case, it is abundantly clear that people in Columbus’s time knew full well that the way he was behaving was tyrannical and wrong. That is why his Spanish subjects rebelled against him, why the king and queen removed him from his position as governor, and why Bartolomé de las Casas railed against him for his mistreatment of the natives.“Sure, Columbus did some bad things, but George Washington owned slaves, so are you going to say we should stop celebrating George Washington’s Birthday (which is also a federal holiday)?”The problem here is that, yes, George Washington owned slaves, but he also played a pivotal role in helping the United States win and retain its independence and in shaping our country’s constitution and the presidency. There are plenty of good things Washington did that we can justly honor him for. With Columbus, on the other hand, the only thing he did for our country was the result of a ridiculous mistake that he never even admitted. That is not even mentioning the fact that Columbus actually never set foot on any part of the land that would later become the mainland United States, since his explorations were confined to the Caribbean and South America.ABOVE: Map of all four of Christopher Columbus’s voyages. He never actually set foot on any part of the land that would later become the mainland United States.The origins of Columbus DayAt this point, you all may be wondering, “How did we even start honoring this man to begin with?” This is actually a very interesting question, because, during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, in the British colonies that would later become the United States, Columbus was not generally seen as particularly important in the history of North America.Columbus was not totally obscure in colonial America; plenty of people during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries had heard of him. Nonetheless, the Italian explorer John Cabot (lived c. 1450 – c. 1500), who sailed under the sponsorship of King Henry VII of England, was honored as the true discoverer of America, because he explored the northeast coast of North America in 1497, which made him the first European known at the time to have explored any part of mainland North America.Then the Revolutionary War changed everything. The American patriots fighting for independence from the British crown needed a historical figure to rally behind as their hero. This hero needed to be stubborn, persistent, a rebel with a cause, and, above all, he needed to be someone who was neither British nor in league with the British. Christopher Columbus, an Italian employed by the Spanish Crown, fit the bill. That is how our nation’s capital, the District of Columbia, was named after him.The publication of Washington Irving’s A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus in January 1828 popularized the already growing fame of Christopher Columbus in the United States. Irving transformed Columbus from a small-time explorer with a legacy championed by a small, but growing, number of prominent devotees into a full-fledged national hero—a lover of adventure and exploration and the ideal paragon of the American spirit. The true, historical Columbus was forgotten, supplanted almost entirely by Irving’s glamorized idol.In the late nineteenth century, when Italian Catholic immigrants came over to the United States in large numbers, they were widely hated by the Anglo-American Protestants who were already living here. Italian-Americans were mostly confined to lower-paying jobs involving difficult manual labor and they often lived in unsatisfactory parts of cities and towns. They were widely seen as lazy and unprofitable members of society. Their Catholicism in particular was widely seen as a dangerous threat to the national security of the United States.Many Americans believed that Catholics were incapable of loyalty to their new country, since they maintained a higher loyalty to the Pope in Rome. In effort to show that Italians had made important contributions to American society, Italian immigrants seized Christopher Columbus as their patron. For instance, they held a massive celebration on October 12, 1866 in New York City in honor of Columbus’s first voyage. In 1882, the Irish-American Catholic priest Michael J. McGivney founded a Catholic fraternal organization in New Haven, Connecticut, called the “Knights of Columbus.”Columbus’s popularity, however, received a massive boost in 1893 when President Rutherford B. Hayes advocated that every American should celebrate October 12 of that year as the four hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in San Salvador. It was as part of this nation-wide celebration of Columbus that the socialist activist Francis Bellamy wrote the original version of the Pledge of Allegiance. This pledge was recited by students all across the country for the first time in honor of Columbus. This cemented Columbus’s already existing associations with patriotism and the American spirit in the minds of an entire generation of schoolchildren. That same year, the city of Chicago hosted the World’s Columbian Exposition, a world’s fair in honor of Columbus’s supposed “discovery” of the “New World.”Columbus Day was first declared a state holiday in Colorado in 1905 and it became a statutory holiday in 1907. In 1934, the Knights of Columbus and the Italian-American community of New York City, led by the businessman and newspaper magnate Generoso Pope, lobbied extensively for Congress to pass a bill requesting the president to make an annual declaration of October 12th as Columbus Day. Congress passed the bill in April and it was signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.The bill signed by President Roosevelt did not make Columbus Day a federal holiday, but, in 1966, an Italian-American named Mariano A. Lucca began lobbying to make it one. These efforts resulted in success and, in 1968, Columbus Day became an official federal holiday.ABOVE: Advertisement for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois in 1893, celebrating the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in San Salvador. The exposition was a massive boost to Columbus’s popularity.In the years since then, however, many Americans have increasingly come to recognize the terrible effects that our ancestors’ colonization had on the indigenous peoples of this continent. Starting in the 1960s, when the rights of native Americans received invigorated attention, Christopher Columbus’s reputation has steadily declined. Yet, astonishingly, a poll from October of 2017 year shows that 58% of Americans support Columbus Day as a federal holiday, which is 8% more than supported it in 2015.Make no mistake: Columbus was a tremendously historically significant individual and I am not in any way suggesting that we should wipe him out of the history books. We should continue to teach students about him and what he did, but we need to let go of the myths. We should teach Columbus for what he was: a largely incompetent fortune-seeker who just got plain lucky.Above all, it is absolutely baffling why we still have a federal holiday in honor of him, especially when the only two other people who share that honor are George Washington and Martin Luther King Jr. (Technically, George Washington’s Birthday is usually replaced with Presidents’ Day, in honor of all presidents past and present, but it is still officially listed as a federal holiday under the name “George Washington’s Birthday.”) I completely understand the desire to honor Italian Americans and the contributions they have made to our country, but we can do that without honoring a man whose actions ought to be morally appalling to any reasonable human being.Some have proposed that Columbus Day be replaced with a generic holiday honoring Italian Americans and their contributions to American culture. I have no problem with this idea. We could create essentially an Italian version of Saint Patrick’s Day. On the other hand, if Italian Americans still want a famous Italian historical figure to celebrate, there are literally thousands of famous Italians who have made invaluable contributions to modern society and who never committed any moral atrocities on the scale of those committed by Columbus (eg. Giovanni Boccaccio, Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarch, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, etc.).There have been countless Italian and Italian American writers, philosophers, scientists, artists, social reformers, and others who are a thousand times more worthy to be celebrated than Christopher Columbus. You can really just take your pick which one(s) you want to celebrate. Just preferably do not pick someone who raped, pillaged, enslaved, mutilated, and murdered hundreds of people. That should be fairly simple.(NOTE: This answer is mostly an excerpt from a much longer and more detailed article I originally published on my website on 12 October 2018. Here is a link to the full, original article.)

No, there is no military coup taking place. It’s all wishful thinking by the uninformed media:Here is the full statement by the General which was deliberately not published by the Herald on Tuesday, but released today after the Army stepped in. Apparently, there are some divisive elements within the government who were trying to censure the General’s statement. They selected a few phrases which they twisted to imply a direct challenge to the President, but apparently, if you read the full statement, the Generals are pledging allegiance to the President.“The famous slogan espoused by His Excellency, The President of the Republic of Zimbabwe Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, Cde R. G. Mugabe: “Zimbabwe will never be a colony again” is being seriously challenged by counter revolutionary infiltrators who are now effectively influencing the direction of the Party.”“It is our strong and deeply considered position that if drastic action is not taken immediately, our beloved country Zimbabwe is definitely headed to becoming a neo-colony again.”“Among other security threats that are coming out of what is obtaining in Zanu-PF are there reckless utterances by politicians denigrating the military which are causing despondency within the rank and file.Further, we not with concern the attempts by some politicians to drive a wedge between the security services for their own selfish interests. This is unacceptable. We take great exception to this behaviour.There is only one Commander-in-Chief, His Excellency The President, Head of State and Government and Commander in Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, Cde R. G. Mugabe.”FULL STATEMENT:Let us begin by quoting the Constitution of this Country particularly the preamble which speaks of “Exalting and extolling the brave men and women who sacrificed their lives during the Chimurenga/Umvukela and national liberation struggles and honouring our forebears and compatriots who toiled for the progress of our country”.It is with humility and a heavy heart that we come before you to pronounce the indisputable reality that there is instability in Zanu-PF today and as a result anxiety in the country at large. Zimbabwe’s history is hinged on the ideals of the revolution dating back to the First Chimurenga where thousands of people perished.Zanu-PF is the political Party that waged the Second Chimurenga for our independence; the struggle that caused the loss of over 50 thousand lives of our people; the struggle in which many Zimbabweans, in one way or the other, sacrificed and contributed immensely for our liberation.Many of these gallant fighters still live-on with the spirited hope of seeing a prosperous Zimbabwe but also the hope of leaving behind inheritance and legacy for posterity. It is pertinent to restate that the Zimbabwe Defence Forces remain the major stockholder in respect to the gains of the liberation struggle and when these are threatened we are obliged to take corrective measures.Clearly, Zanu-PF having mainly been the only Party that has ruled this country since Independence, it had become a household name to most Zimbabweans across political divide. Therefore, it is common cause that any instability within the Party naturally impacts on their social, political and economic lives, accordingly, there is distress, trepidation and despondence within the nation.Our peace-loving people who have stood by their Government and endured some of the most trying social and economic conditions ever experienced are extremely disturbed by what is happening within the ranks of the national revolutionary Party.What is obtaining in the revolutionary Party is a direct result of the machinations of counter revolutionaries who have infiltrated the Party and whose agenda is to destroy it from within. It is saddening to see our revolution being hijacked by agents of our erstwhile enemies who are now at the brink of returning our country to foreign domination against which so many of our people perished.The famous slogan espoused by His Excellency, The President of the Republic of Zimbabwe Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, Cde R. G. Mugabe: “Zimbabwe will never be a colony again” is being seriously challenged by counter revolutionary infiltrators who are now effectively influencing the direction of the Party.It is our strong and deeply considered position that if drastic action is not taken immediately, our beloved country Zimbabwe is definitely headed to becoming a neo-colony again.The current purging and cleansing process in Zanu-PF which so far is targeting mostly members associated with our liberation history is a serious cause for concern to us in the Defence Forces.As a result of squabbling within the ranks of Zanu-PF, there has been no meaningful development in the country for the past 5 years. The resultant economic impasse has ushered-in more challenges to the Zimbabwean populace such as cash shortages and rising commodities prices.Our revolutionary path is replete with conduct and rebellion by people who have attempted to destroy the revolution from within. The formation of FROLIZI, the attempt to remove the late Cde Chitepo from his position of Chairman at the Mumbwa bogus Congress in 1973, the Nhari-Badza rebellion, Ndabaningi Sithole rebellion soon after the death of Cde Chitepo, the Vashandi 1 and 2 as well as the rebellion that led to the death of the late ZIPRA Commander, Cde Alfred Nikita Mangena, among others are cases in point.Therefore, the current shenanigans by people who do not share the same liberation history of Zanu-PF Party are not a surprise to us.But, what is significant to us and the generality of Zimbabweans is to remember that all these rebellions were defused by the military, but at no point did the military usurp power.We must remind those behind the current treacherous shenanigans that when it comes to matters of protecting out revolution, the military will not hesitate to step in.ZANU PF’s standing political virtues are a product of faithful adherence to the founding values, decorum, discipline and revolutionary protocol in the ruling Party.Party orders were strictly adhered to and whatever differences existed, they were resolved amicably and in the ruling Party’s closet. Unfortunately since the turn of 2015, Zanu-PF’s traditional protocol and procedures have been changed with a lot of gossiping, backbiting and public chastisement being the order of the day. Indeed the Party is undoing its legacy built over the years.While our people may be persuaded to take what is going on in Zanu-PF as internal political matters in that Party, the truth remains that Zanu-PF’s conduct and behaviour as a ruling Party has a direct impact on the lives of every citizen; hence all of us regardless of political affiliation are affected by the Party’s manner of doing business.From a security point of view we cannot ignore the experiences of countries such as Somalia, DRC, Central Africa Republic and many others in our region where minor political differences degenerated into serious conflict that had decimated the social, political and economic security of ordinary people.Section 212 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe mandates the Zimbabwe Defence Forces to protect Zimbabwe, its people, its national security and interests and its territorial integrity and to uphold this Constitution.Among other security threats that are coming out of what is obtaining in Zanu-PF are there reckless utterances by politicians denigrating the military which are causing despondency within the rank and file.Further, we not with concern the attempts by some politicians to drive a wedge between the security services for their own selfish interests. This is unacceptable. We take great exception to this behaviour.There is only one Commander-in-Chief, His Excellency The President, Head of State and Government and Commander in Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, Cde R. G. Mugabe.The military in an institution whose roles cut across the wider spectrum of Government support functions in the form of Military Aid to Civil Power and Military Aid to Civil Ministries, which are roles derived from Defence Instruments. Therefore we want to state here and now that the history of our revolution cannot be rewritten by those who have not been part of it.Having said that we strongly urge the Party:To stop reckless utterances by politicians from the ruling Party denigrating the military which is causing alarm and despondency within the rank and file. The current purging of which is clearly targeting members of the party with a liberation background must stop forthwith.The known counter revolutionary elements who have fermented the current instability in the Party must be exposed and fished out. As the Party goes for the Extra-Ordinary Congress, must go with equal opportunity to exercise their democratic rights.Comrades and friends, ladies and gentlemen, we remain committed to protecting our legacy and those bent on high-jacking the revolution will not be allowed to do so.Further, we must understand that the freedoms that we enjoy today were as a result of supreme sacrifice by some of our country men and women and this must not be taken for granted. Let us remove this air of uncertainty and allow Zimbabweans to enjoy their freedoms and rights as enshrined in the national Constitution.

I couldn't find “boycott of China” anywhere, there’s a rejection of ideology and trade practices which is nothing new and which no one needs convincing about.Trumps UN speech transcriptToday, I stand before the United Nations General Assembly to share the extraordinary progress we’ve made.In less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.America’s — so true. (Laughter.) Didn’t expect that reaction, but that’s okay. (Laughter and applause.)America’s economy is booming like never before. Since my election, we’ve added $10 trillion in wealth. The stock market is at an all-time high in history, and jobless claims are at a 50-year low. African American, Hispanic American, and Asian American unemployment have all achieved their lowest levels ever recorded. We’ve added more than 4 million new jobs, including half a million manufacturing jobs.We have passed the biggest tax cuts and reforms in American history. We’ve started the construction of a major border wall, and we have greatly strengthened border security.We have secured record funding for our military — $700 billion this year, and $716 billion next year. Our military will soon be more powerful than it has ever been before.In other words, the United States is stronger, safer, and a richer country than it was when I assumed office less than two years ago.We are standing up for America and for the American people. And we are also standing up for the world.This is great news for our citizens and for peace-loving people everywhere. We believe that when nations respect the rights of their neighbors, and defend the interests of their people, they can better work together to secure the blessings of safety, prosperity, and peace.Each of us here today is the emissary of a distinct culture, a rich history, and a people bound together by ties of memory, tradition, and the values that make our homelands like nowhere else on Earth.That is why America will always choose independence and cooperation over global governance, control, and domination.I honor the right of every nation in this room to pursue its own customs, beliefs, and traditions. The United States will not tell you how to live or work or worship.We only ask that you honor our sovereignty in return.From Warsaw to Brussels, to Tokyo to Singapore, it has been my highest honor to represent the United States abroad. I have forged close relationships and friendships and strong partnerships with the leaders of many nations in this room, and our approach has already yielded incredible change.With support from many countries here today, we have engaged with North Korea to replace the specter of conflict with a bold and new push for peace.In June, I traveled to Singapore to meet face to face with North Korea’s leader, Chairman Kim Jong Un.We had highly productive conversations and meetings, and we agreed that it was in both countries’ interest to pursue the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Since that meeting, we have already seen a number of encouraging measures that few could have imagined only a short time ago.The missiles and rockets are no longer flying in every direction. Nuclear testing has stopped. Some military facilities are already being dismantled. Our hostages have been released. And as promised, the remains of our fallen heroes are being returned home to lay at rest in American soil.I would like to thank Chairman Kim for his courage and for the steps he has taken, though much work remains to be done. The sanctions will stay in place until denuclearization occurs.I also want to thank the many member states who helped us reach this moment — a moment that is actually far greater than people would understand; far greater — but for also their support and the critical support that we will all need going forward.A special thanks to President Moon of South Korea, Prime Minister Abe of Japan, and President Xi of China.In the Middle East, our new approach is also yielding great strides and very historic change.Following my trip to Saudi Arabia last year, the Gulf countries opened a new center to target terrorist financing. They are enforcing new sanctions, working with us to identify and track terrorist networks, and taking more responsibility for fighting terrorism and extremism in their own region.The UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar have pledged billions of dollars to aid the people of Syria and Yemen. And they are pursuing multiple avenues to ending Yemen’s horrible, horrific civil war.Ultimately, it is up to the nations of the region to decide what kind of future they want for themselves and their children.For that reason, the United States is working with the Gulf Cooperation Council, Jordan, and Egypt to establish a regional strategic alliance so that Middle Eastern nations can advance prosperity, stability, and security across their home region.Thanks to the United States military and our partnership with many of your nations, I am pleased to report that the bloodthirsty killers known as ISIS have been driven out from the territory they once held in Iraq and Syria. We will continue to work with friends and allies to deny radical Islamic terrorists any funding, territory or support, or any means of infiltrating our borders.The ongoing tragedy in Syria is heartbreaking. Our shared goals must be the de-escalation of military conflict, along with a political solution that honors the will of the Syrian people. In this vein, we urge the United Nations-led peace process be reinvigorated. But, rest assured, the United States will respond if chemical weapons are deployed by the Assad regime.I commend the people of Jordan and other neighboring countries for hosting refugees from this very brutal civil war.As we see in Jordan, the most compassionate policy is to place refugees as close to their homes as possible to ease their eventual return to be part of the rebuilding process. This approach also stretches finite resources to help far more people, increasing the impact of every dollar spent.Every solution to the humanitarian crisis in Syria must also include a strategy to address the brutal regime that has fueled and financed it: the corrupt dictatorship in Iran.Iran’s leaders sow chaos, death, and destruction. They do not respect their neighbors or borders, or the sovereign rights of nations. Instead, Iran’s leaders plunder the nation’s resources to enrich themselves and to spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond.The Iranian people are rightly outraged that their leaders have embezzled billions of dollars from Iran’s treasury, seized valuable portions of the economy, and looted the people’s religious endowments, all to line their own pockets and send their proxies to wage war. Not good.Iran’s neighbors have paid a heavy toll for the region’s [regime’s] agenda of aggression and expansion. That is why so many countries in the Middle East strongly supported my decision to withdraw the United States from the horrible 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal and re-impose nuclear sanctions.The Iran deal was a windfall for Iran’s leaders. In the years since the deal was reached, Iran’s military budget grew nearly 40 percent. The dictatorship used the funds to build nuclear-capable missiles, increase internal repression, finance terrorism, and fund havoc and slaughter in Syria and Yemen.The United States has launched a campaign of economic pressure to deny the regime the funds it needs to advance its bloody agenda. Last month, we began re-imposing hard-hitting nuclear sanctions that had been lifted under the Iran deal. Additional sanctions will resume November 5th, and more will follow. And we’re working with countries that import Iranian crude oil to cut their purchases substantially.We cannot allow the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism to possess the planet’s most dangerous weapons. We cannot allow a regime that chants “Death to America,” and that threatens Israel with annihilation, to possess the means to deliver a nuclear warhead to any city on Earth. Just can’t do it.We ask all nations to isolate Iran’s regime as long as its aggression continues. And we ask all nations to support Iran’s people as they struggle to reclaim their religious and righteous destiny.This year, we also took another significant step forward in the Middle East. In recognition of every sovereign state to determine its own capital, I moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.The United States is committed to a future of peace and stability in the region, including peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. That aim is advanced, not harmed, by acknowledging the obvious facts.America’s policy of principled realism means we will not be held hostage to old dogmas, discredited ideologies, and so-called experts who have been proven wrong over the years, time and time again. This is true not only in matters of peace, but in matters of prosperity.We believe that trade must be fair and reciprocal. The United States will not be taken advantage of any longer.For decades, the United States opened its economy — the largest, by far, on Earth — with few conditions. We allowed foreign goods from all over the world to flow freely across our borders.Yet, other countries did not grant us fair and reciprocal access to their markets in return. Even worse, some countries abused their openness to dump their products, subsidize their goods, target our industries, and manipulate their currencies to gain unfair advantage over our country. As a result, our trade deficit ballooned to nearly $800 billion a year.For this reason, we are systematically renegotiating broken and bad trade deals.Last month, we announced a groundbreaking U.S.-Mexico trade agreement. And just yesterday, I stood with President Moon to announce the successful completion of the brand new U.S.-Korea trade deal. And this is just the beginning.Many nations in this hall will agree that the world trading system is in dire need of change. For example, countries were admitted to the World Trade Organization that violate every single principle on which the organization is based. While the United States and many other nations play by the rules, these countries use government-run industrial planning and state-owned enterprises to rig the system in their favor. They engage in relentless product dumping, forced technology transfer, and the theft of intellectual property.The United States lost over 3 million manufacturing jobs, nearly a quarter of all steel jobs, and 60,000 factories after China joined the WTO. And we have racked up $13 trillion in trade deficits over the last two decades.But those days are over. We will no longer tolerate such abuse. We will not allow our workers to be victimized, our companies to be cheated, and our wealth to be plundered and transferred. America will never apologize for protecting its citizens.The United States has just announced tariffs on another $200 billion in Chinese-made goods for a total, so far, of $250 billion. I have great respect and affection for my friend, President Xi, but I have made clear our trade imbalance is just not acceptable. China’s market distortions and the way they deal cannot be tolerated.As my administration has demonstrated, America will always act in our national interest.I spoke before this body last year and warned that the U.N. Human Rights Council had become a grave embarrassment to this institution, shielding egregious human rights abusers while bashing America and its many friends.Our Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, laid out a clear agenda for reform, but despite reported and repeated warnings, no action at all was taken.So the United States took the only responsible course: We withdrew from the Human Rights Council, and we will not return until real reform is enacted.For similar reasons, the United States will provide no support in recognition to the International Criminal Court. As far as America is concerned, the ICC has no jurisdiction, no legitimacy, and no authority. The ICC claims near-universal jurisdiction over the citizens of every country, violating all principles of justice, fairness, and due process. We will never surrender America’s sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy.America is governed by Americans. We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism.Around the world, responsible nations must defend against threats to sovereignty not just from global governance, but also from other, new forms of coercion and domination.In America, we believe strongly in energy security for ourselves and for our allies. We have become the largest energy producer anywhere on the face of the Earth.The United States stands ready to export our abundant, affordable supply of oil, clean coal, and natural gas.OPEC and OPEC nations, are, as usual, ripping off the rest of the world, and I don’t like it. Nobody should like it. We defend many of these nations for nothing, and then they take advantage of us by giving us high oil prices. Not good.We want them to stop raising prices, we want them to start lowering prices, and they must contribute substantially to military protection from now on. We are not going to put up with it — these horrible prices — much longer.Reliance on a single foreign supplier can leave a nation vulnerable to extortion and intimidation. That is why we congratulate European states, such as Poland, for leading the construction of a Baltic pipeline so that nations are not dependent on Russia to meet their energy needs. Germany will become totally dependent on Russian energy if it does not immediately change course.Here in the Western Hemisphere, we are committed to maintaining our independence from the encroachment of expansionist foreign powers.It has been the formal policy of our country since President Monroe that we reject the interference of foreign nations in this hemisphere and in our own affairs. The United States has recently strengthened our laws to better screen foreign investments in our country for national security threats, and we welcome cooperation with countries in this region and around the world that wish to do the same. You need to do it for your own protection.The United States is also working with partners in Latin America to confront threats to sovereignty from uncontrolled migration. Tolerance for human struggling and human smuggling and trafficking is not humane. It’s a horrible thing that’s going on, at levels that nobody has ever seen before. It’s very, very cruel.Illegal immigration funds criminal networks, ruthless gangs, and the flow of deadly drugs. Illegal immigration exploits vulnerable populations, hurts hardworking citizens, and has produced a vicious cycle of crime, violence, and poverty. Only by upholding national borders, destroying criminal gangs, can we break this cycle and establish a real foundation for prosperity.We recognize the right of every nation in this room to set its own immigration policy in accordance with its national interests, just as we ask other countries to respect our own right to do the same — which we are doing. That is one reason the United States will not participate in the new Global Compact on Migration. Migration should not be governed by an international body unaccountable to our own citizens.Ultimately, the only long-term solution to the migration crisis is to help people build more hopeful futures in their home countries. Make their countries great again.Currently, we are witnessing a human tragedy, as an example, in Venezuela. More than 2 million people have fled the anguish inflicted by the socialist Maduro regime and its Cuban sponsors.Not long ago, Venezuela was one of the richest countries on Earth. Today, socialism has bankrupted the oil-rich nation and driven its people into abject poverty.Virtually everywhere socialism or communism has been tried, it has produced suffering, corruption, and decay. Socialism’s thirst for power leads to expansion, incursion, and oppression. All nations of the world should resist socialism and the misery that it brings to everyone.In that spirit, we ask the nations gathered here to join us in calling for the restoration of democracy in Venezuela. Today, we are announcing additional sanctions against the repressive regime, targeting Maduro’s inner circle and close advisors.We are grateful for all the work the United Nations does around the world to help people build better lives for themselves and their families.The United States is the world’s largest giver in the world, by far, of foreign aid. But few give anything to us. That is why we are taking a hard look at U.S. foreign assistance. That will be headed up by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. We will examine what is working, what is not working, and whether the countries who receive our dollars and our protection also have our interests at heart.Moving forward, we are only going to give foreign aid to those who respect us and, frankly, are our friends. And we expect other countries to pay their fair share for the cost of their defense.The United States is committed to making the United Nations more effective and accountable. I have said many times that the United Nations has unlimited potential. As part of our reform effort, I have told our negotiators that the United States will not pay more than 25 percent of the U.N. peacekeeping budget. This will encourage other countries to step up, get involved, and also share in this very large burden.And we are working to shift more of our funding from assessed contributions to voluntary so that we can target American resources to the programs with the best record of success.Only when each of us does our part and contributes our share can we realize the U.N.’s highest aspirations. We must pursue peace without fear, hope without despair, and security without apology.Looking around this hall where so much history has transpired, we think of the many before us who have come here to address the challenges of their nations and of their times. And our thoughts turn to the same question that ran through all their speeches and resolutions, through every word and every hope. It is the question of what kind of world will we leave for our children and what kind of nations they will inherit.The dreams that fill this hall today are as diverse as the people who have stood at this podium, and as varied as the countries represented right here in this body are. It really is something. It really is great, great history.There is India, a free society over a billion people, successfully lifting countless millions out of poverty and into the middle class.There is Saudi Arabia, where King Salman and the Crown Prince are pursuing bold new reforms.There is Israel, proudly celebrating its 70th anniversary as a thriving democracy in the Holy Land.In Poland, a great people are standing up for their independence, their security, and their sovereignty.Many countries are pursuing their own unique visions, building their own hopeful futures, and chasing their own wonderful dreams of destiny, of legacy, and of a home.The whole world is richer, humanity is better, because of this beautiful constellation of nations, each very special, each very unique, and each shining brightly in its part of the world.In each one, we see awesome promise of a people bound together by a shared past and working toward a common future.As for Americans, we know what kind of future we want for ourselves. We know what kind of a nation America must always be.In America, we believe in the majesty of freedom and the dignity of the individual. We believe in self-government and the rule of law. And we prize the culture that sustains our liberty -– a culture built on strong families, deep faith, and fierce independence. We celebrate our heroes, we treasure our traditions, and above all, we love our country.Inside everyone in this great chamber today, and everyone listening all around the globe, there is the heart of a patriot that feels the same powerful love for your nation, the same intense loyalty to your homeland.The passion that burns in the hearts of patriots and the souls of nations has inspired reform and revolution, sacrifice and selflessness, scientific breakthroughs, and magnificent works of art.Our task is not to erase it, but to embrace it. To build with it. To draw on its ancient wisdom. And to find within it the will to make our nations greater, our regions safer, and the world better.To unleash this incredible potential in our people, we must defend the foundations that make it all possible. Sovereign and independent nations are the only vehicle where freedom has ever survived, democracy has ever endured, or peace has ever prospered. And so we must protect our sovereignty and our cherished independence above all.When we do, we will find new avenues for cooperation unfolding before us. We will find new passion for peacemaking rising within us. We will find new purpose, new resolve, and new spirit flourishing all around us, and making this a more beautiful world in which to live.So together, let us choose a future of patriotism, prosperity, and pride. Let us choose peace and freedom over domination and defeat. And let us come here to this place to stand for our people and their nations, forever strong, forever sovereign, forever just, and forever thankful for the grace and the goodness and the glory of God.Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the nations of the world.Thank you very much. Thank you. (Applause.)#end of transcript